Thermally tempered substrates, such as thermally tempered glass, have a built-in stress profile that provides added strength and scratch resistance. Such substrates have found many applications, such as architectural glass applications and screens for electronic devices, for example.
In recent years, precision micromachining and its improvement of process development to meet customer demand to reduce the size, weight and material cost of leading-edge devices has led to fast pace growth in high-tech industries. Ultrafast industrial lasers are becoming important tools for applications requiring high precision micromachining.
However, due to the large amount of stress contained in thermally tempered glass, processing, such as cutting, is extremely difficult. Attempts at cutting thermally tempered glass with conventional methods releases this built-in stress and leads to fragmentation of the whole sheet. For this reason, thermally tempered glass is cut to shape before the thermal tempering process. Thus, thermally tempered glass sheets are only available in limited number of stock sizes. This may inhibit flexibility, impact the cost of custom fit sheets, and further limit use of tempered glass.
Accordingly, alternative systems and methods for cutting thermally tempered substrates may be desired.